PNEUMOTHERAPY (II) is a performance and sculptural installation, it is the second installment in the –therapy series, a set of durational and immersive performance propositions developed
while in residency at Palais de Tokyo in the spring of 2019.
The first installment HAEMOTHERAPY (I) was presented at Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, on December 18.
Each iteration is presented as an open-ended, non-narrative ritual. Every performance unravels over the course of seven consecutive hours, only six of which are open to the public. The titles are comprised of reconstituted medical jargon. Each piece is thematically focused on a different part of the body. The resulting composition is informed by both scientific and spiritual interpretations of the human body and all its intrinsic mechanisms.
In equal parts, Greenberg employs esoteric symbolism and modern psychological theory to define an architectural context conducive to an energetic shift in the artist’s own anatomy, as well as those of his audience members.
The focus of the performance is without any doubt the body.
The installation, architecture of the space and the material/visual elements are certainly important but mainly have a catalyst objective. They act as amulets, as keys that open the doors to more hidden areas of our organicity. In this chapter the flower and the rock, they introduce a chest made of bones and cells, even the hard is part of the process of becoming.
By observing the bodily movements of Miles Greenberg, his slow and lasting dance, quiet in persisting, imperial in erecting the body, ritual in the frills, impetuous in moments, it’s impossible not to perceive hidden reminiscences of the dance of darkness or so-called white dance (butoh dance), since there is no distinction between one and the other: the organless body desired by Antonin Artaud is as shining in its superficiality as it is dark in its strength.
Here something shines on the body, something golden, it seems to glimpse the scenic phallus of Tatsumi Hijikata in The rebellion of the flesh.
And he rotates and rotates like the atoms and their becoming. The rock, the body and the twig are one.
Pneumotherapy is the medical use of compressed or rarefied gases, and was at one time used to treat people suffering from pneumothorax (lung collapse). The movement of the body is felt in its greatest rarefaction. Perhaps this body does not already have organs? Maybe it contains only air and is this the game of vibrations that suverts it?
Emiliano Aversa
Perrotin, New York, USA
7th February 2020
Collaborators include Marie de Testa (set design), Chris Habana (jewelry), Le Fleuriste (floral design), Cheyenne Sykes (lighting direction), and (JJ)esus (soundscape). Co-produced by PHI STUDIOS, Elena Seegers, Simon de Dreuille, and Daphnee Lanternier.
